Health & Medicine
Through the study and use of genetics, we can identify measures that could lead to the improvement of human health and wellness. These methods and procedures aim to prevent years of chronic disease and thousands of dollars in health care costs, and provide families and communities with knowledge of how to live healthier.
Below is the complete archive of related articles sorted by date.
EU food safety chief: Critics of glyphosate safety finding are ‘playing politics’, undermining science
Politicians who attack the EU agency that ruled the weedkiller glyphosate probably does not cause cancer are in danger of ...
Why you can tell the difference between fake laughter and the real thing
Most of us will laugh at a good joke, but we also laugh when we are not actually amused. Fake ...
Two halves better than one: Why our brain evolved to be symmetrical
The human brain evolved to have two halves — and a new review of previous research suggests that this dual ...
Creative people perceive the world and process images differently
If you’re the kind of person who relishes adventure, you may literally see the world differently. People who are open ...
Tangled in mystery: How 6 feet of DNA squeezes into nearly every cell of our body
[Leonid Mirny, a biophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge,] argues that DNA is constantly being slipped through ring-like motor ...
‘Wouldn’t help much’: What would a ban on neonicotinoid insecticides do for bee health?
“Everyone knows insecticides can kill bees,” says honeybee biologist Francis Ratnieks at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK. “The ...
Fake science news: Rise of ‘predatory journals’ makes it easier to publish, spread ‘advocacy research’
[Editor's note: Robert Fraley is Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Monsanto. He has Ph.D. degrees in microbiology ...
Can you be a skeptic and anti-GMO?
[Editor’s note: Myles Power is a chemist in Manchester, England.] Over the past year, I have been giving a talk to ...
How US NGOs are exploiting Europe’s precautionary chemophobia to ban glyphosate and GMOs
Environmental NGOs have a harder time influencing the evidence-based US regulatory system, so they're taking the fight to Europe — ...
‘Thirsty plants’ to land conservation: How biotechnology helps address developing world’s agricultural challenges
[Editor's note: Sarah Evanega holds a doctorate in plant biology from Cornell University, where she is the director of the Alliance ...
Dad genes: Being a good father may be genetic
[A] team of Harvard researchers has located specific DNA segments that influence paternal behaviors, the closest scientist have come to finding the “dad genes” ...
Talking Biotech: What’s blocking GMO crop adoption in Africa?
Sociologist Matthew Harsh: Poor communication between Kenyan scientists, policymakers, farmers and anti-biotech activists slows GMO adoption ...
Epigenetics Around the Web: Evolution of instincts — How ‘real’ is behavioral plasticity?
A researcher's decision to broadcast his controversial hypothesis about the evolution of instincts is irresponsible, and a study throws cold ...
Why does pancreatic cancer often hit so hard and usually kill its victims so quickly?
Pancreatic cancer. When news of this type of diagnosis is mentioned, those two words strike fear and dread in most ...
Why so many biotechnology start-ups, like Theranos, fail
Two years after the $9 billion start-up “unicorn” Theranos crumbled, Silicon Valley still appears to be struggling to learn its ...
I’ll do it tomorrow: Procrastination may have evolved as survival mechanism
If you like to put things off or surf the internet instead of getting work done, you might be able ...
Will corporate mergers in agriculture spur innovation?
[Editor's note: Ed Wiederstein is a former president of the Iowa Farm Bureau and a farmer in Iowa.] When funding was more ...
‘Non-GMO’ ranked near top, ‘organic’ at bottom in study of consumer meat preferences
For many consumers, buying a gallon of milk is much more complex than finding the preferred fat content and expiration ...
Will California break with EPA and ban chlorpyrifos pesticide?
Approximately one million pounds of chlorpyrifos—about 20 percent of what’s used nationwide—are applied annually in California to dozens of food ...
‘Glyphosate is vital’: Scottish farmers launch campaign to support herbicide’s reauthorization
As the EU decision on whether or not to re-authorise the herbicide glyphosate approaches, a farming union has called on ...
March for Science: Agony and ecstasy of a Malaysian agricultural biotechnology science communicator
In many ways, communicating science can be more difficult than scientific research. As advances in biotechnology speed up, scientists around ...
‘Backlash’ against GMOs may be more about corporate power than science
Much of the backlash against GMOs is less about genetic engineering and more about the business practices of the corporations ...
There are no GM oranges — So why is Tropicana deceiving consumers with Non-GMO label?
[Editor's note: Greg Jaffe is the Director of the Project on Biotechnology for the Center for Science in the Public ...
Status climb with caution: Social mobility may take a toll on our DNA
'Moving on up' is a cherished American value (and important in other societies, too). But there could be a cost ...
Designer muscles: How gene doping could change sports
[Editor's Note: Adam Piore is an award-winning journalist and author of the new book The Body Builders: Inside the Science ...
Why do people with autism tend to repeat themselves? It may be genetics
April is Autism Awareness Month and even MIT scientists are getting in on the action with compelling new genetic research...[R]esearchers ...
Consuming healthy fats lowers nonfatal heart attack risk for certain genotypes
[A recent study] analyzed data from 1932 case subjects who had suffered a nonfatal [heart attack] and 2055 control subjects living ...
